Jesica Santillan

Is there something terribly wrong when the family members of transplant patient Jesica Santillan, who are in this country illegally, can sue the hospital for the botched medical procedure? My sympathies to the family; how can the legal system, however, permit them to sue and yet take no action against them for being here illegally and flaunting that fact?

The head of a group that helped locate organs for the Mexican teenager who died after a bungled transplant says his organization didn't know her blood type before it released the heart and lungs. Jesica Santillan, 17, died Feb. 22, about two weeks after her first heart-lung transplant at Duke University Medical Center. A second set of organs was required because Jesica had type-O blood and the organs used in the first operation were type A. Correctly matched organs were implanted Feb....

The head of a group that helped locate organs for the Mexican teenager who died after a bungled transplant says his organization didn't know her blood type before it released the heart and lungs. Jesica Santillan, 17, died Feb. 22, about two weeks after her first heart-lung transplant at Duke University Medical Center. A second set of organs was required because Jesica had type-O blood and the organs used in the first operation were type A. Correctly matched organs were implanted Feb....

Is there something terribly wrong when the family members of transplant patient Jesica Santillan, who are in this country illegally, can sue the hospital for the botched medical procedure? My sympathies to the family; how can the legal system, however, permit them to sue and yet take no action against them for being here illegally and flaunting that fact?

Medical examiners are planning to perform an autopsy Monday in an effort to determine what ultimately killed a teenager who survived a botched heart-lung transplant but died two days after receiving a second set of organs at Duke Hospital. Family and friends of Jesica Santillan, 17, are planning memorial services for the teenager Tuesday, one public and another private, said Mack Mahoney, a family friend and Santillan's chief benefactor. Mahoney said he believes the family,...

Jesica Santillan, the Mexican teenager who died last month after a bungled heart-lung transplant, was laid to rest in a rural North Carolina cemetery Tuesday. The 17-year-old girl's small white coffin was slipped into a mausoleum wall and covered with a slab of pink granite as her parents and some 100 mourners watched. Plans to bury Jesica in Mexico were abandoned because there was no guarantee her illegal immigrant parents would be allowed to return to the United States afterward.

Jesica Santillan, the Mexican teen who died last month after a bungled heart-lung transplant, was buried in a rural cemetery Tuesday. The 17-year-old's small white coffin was slipped into a mausoleum wall and sealed with a slab of pink granite as her parents watched. About 100 mourners gathered at the small graveyard east of Louisburg for the outdoor service. Plans to bury Jesica in Mexico were abandoned because there was no guarantee that her parents, both illegal immigrants, would be...

Jesica Santillan, the Mexican teen who died last month after a bungled heart-lung transplant, was buried in a rural cemetery Tuesday. The 17-year-old's small white coffin was slipped into a mausoleum wall and sealed with a slab of pink granite as her parents watched. About 100 mourners gathered at the small graveyard east of Louisburg for the outdoor service. Plans to bury Jesica in Mexico were abandoned because there was no guarantee that her parents, both illegal immigrants, would be...

Jesica Santillan, the Mexican teenager who died last month after a bungled heart-lung transplant, was laid to rest in a rural North Carolina cemetery Tuesday. The 17-year-old girl's small white coffin was slipped into a mausoleum wall and covered with a slab of pink granite as her parents and some 100 mourners watched. Plans to bury Jesica in Mexico were abandoned because there was no guarantee her illegal immigrant parents would be allowed to return to the United States afterward.

By Cory Franklin. Cory Franklin is a doctor at John H. Stroger Hospital | March 5, 2003

Recently, a surgeon named James D. Hardy died. Not a household name outside his native Mississippi, he was one of the first pioneers in organ transplantation. Conducting research in obscurity during the 1950s, he became the first surgeon to implant an animal heart in a human in 1964, three years before Christiaan Barnard transplanted a human heart. Lacking a human donor, Dr. Hardy transplanted a chimpanzee's heart into a dying patient. The too-small heart failed immediately and Hardy was...

A 17-year-old girl lay near death Tuesday after mistakenly receiving a heart and lung transplant from a donor with the wrong blood type, and hospital officials held out little hope of finding a new set of organs in time. Jesica Santillan's condition steadily deteriorated after the botched operation Feb. 7. She suffered a heart attack Feb. 10 and a seizure on Sunday, and was in critical condition with a machine keeping her heart and lungs going. "Right now my daughter is between life and...

Doctors acknowledged Tuesday that Jesica Santillan had suffered brain damage after her botched heart-lung transplant and defended their decision to go ahead with a second transplant operation. A Duke University Medical Center ethics panel deemed the second transplant worthwhile after tests showed the brain damage was potentially reversible, hospital officials said. "The feeling was that she may have had some mild degree of neurologic injury, but in our best opinion, it was not...

Doctors acknowledged Tuesday that Jesica Santillan had suffered brain damage after her botched heart-lung transplant and defended their decision to go ahead with a second transplant operation. A Duke University Medical Center ethics panel deemed the second transplant worthwhile after tests showed the brain damage was potentially reversible, hospital officials said. "The feeling was that she may have had some mild degree of neurologic injury, but in our best opinion, it was not...

Mining for nuggets of outrage, as is my wont, I began sifting Monday through the details of the organ-donation flap that followed the death of 17-year-old Jesica Santillan. As has been widely reported, Jesica, whose family smuggled her in from Mexico so she could receive the heart-lung transplant she needed to survive, mistakenly received a set of organs earlier this month from a donor with the wrong blood type. Then, as she was fading, she received a second set Thursday....

Medical examiners will determine what ultimately killed a teenager who survived a botched heart-lung transplant but died two days after receiving a second set of organs. An autopsy was planned Monday on the body of Jesica Santillan, the state medical examiner's office said. A lawyer for the 17-year-old's family said an autopsy was appropriate. "We just want to make sure we know what the cause of death was," attorney Kurt Dixon said Sunday. "If there's going to be legal action down the...

Medical examiners will determine what ultimately killed a teenager who survived a botched heart-lung transplant but died two days after receiving a second set of organs. An autopsy was planned Monday on the body of Jesica Santillan, the state medical examiner's office said. A lawyer for the 17-year-old's family said an autopsy was appropriate. "We just want to make sure we know what the cause of death was," attorney Kurt Dixon said Sunday. "If there's going to be legal action down the...

A 17-year-old girl is in critical condition after mistakenly being given a heart and lung transplant from a donor with the wrong blood type at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C. Jesica Santillan has rejected the organs, is unconscious and on life support, and doctors say she is unlikely to survive more than a few days without another transplant. But she has little chance of getting one because donors are scarce. In 2001, doctors performed only 27 heart-lung transplants in the...

Medical examiners are planning to perform an autopsy Monday in an effort to determine what ultimately killed a teenager who survived a botched heart-lung transplant but died two days after receiving a second set of organs at Duke Hospital. Family and friends of Jesica Santillan, 17, are planning memorial services for the teenager Tuesday, one public and another private, said Mack Mahoney, a family friend and Santillan's chief benefactor. Mahoney said he believes the family,...

A 17-year-old girl who was left near death after a botched heart and lung transplant at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., received replacement organs Thursday in an operation that offered a coveted second chance for both patient and doctor. Jesica Santillan, whose parents smuggled her from Mexico three years ago in hopes of replacing her defective heart and lungs, remained in critical condition following the four-hour procedure early Thursday morning. The operation was made possible when a...

Jesica Santillan's journey from Mexico to the United States for a new heart and lungs ended in futility Saturday when she died at Duke University Hospital, victim of a transplant surgeon's fatal error. Physicians at the hospital in Durham, N.C., who mistakenly transplanted organs with an incompatible blood type, declared the 17-year-old brain dead at 1:25 p.m. EST and removed her from life-support machinery at about 5 p.m., medical center spokesman Richard Puff said. They determined that no...